For those interested in an MS Windows hacker's slant on the microcode update issue check Microcode updates - UPDATE.SYS. These guys are 'rolling their own' to get around MS's lack of support for their old OS's.

The moral of the story? Keep your microcode up to date (either in the BIOS or in the OS) or your system (Win/Linux/?) may get flaky/broken due to a change in software. A BIOS update would be best, since it goes into place before the OS hits the silicon. The microcode update utility is more of a stopgap affair; not the perfect solution, but better than nothing. If your BIOS/Mobo manufacturer drops the ball, this may save your bacon.

Thanks for pinging the thread. Ever since watching the SystemRescueCD system boot, I've wondered where the Intel microcode update message comes from, and now I've got it enabled on my system, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM CPU @ 2.30GHz. BTW, I got the following message when running the update service;

The only thing that's not current with the OP, is that apparently www.urbanmyth.org is no longer providing the homepage for this utility. No problem as the gentoo ebuild, sys-apps/microcode-data-20120606, downloaded the update file from distfiles.gentoo.org.